He had harboured two dreams: To marry his high-school sweetheart and to buy a house in the leafy suburbs of Cape Town, a step up in the world. He married Lynette in 2004 and they even went on honeymoon to Sun City, a luxury resort and casino near Johannesburg on the other side of the country.
In the first few years of their marriage, Bradley and Lynette saved a little money and were hoping to put down a deposit on a house. They lived with Lynette’s parents to cut down on costs. Their first daughter, Ronese, arrived a couple of years later.
But then Lynette’s mom became sick. At first, she was able to receive care at Groote Schuur hospital, yes, the same hospital where Christiaan Barnard performed the first successful heart transplant in 1967. It was a state-funded hospital that still provides excellent care for those who cannot afford private medical care. However, as Bradley’s mother-in-law’s health deteriorated, it became clear that she would require home-based care. That the state did not pay for. Lynette gave up her job as an administrative assistant to look after her mother instead of having to pay for a caregiver.
Their household income halved. They were still living with Bradley’s in-laws. And there were always unexpected bills, so Bradley had no choice but to dip into his “House Project” funds time and time again. Soon there was nothing left in their savings.
Ronese started school, but Lynette refused to enrol her in the local primary school. “Dai kinders het skollies vir pas,”7 she would say. The problem is that the schools were more about crowd control, with more than 40 kids in a class.
If they wanted to give their daughter a future, she’d have to go to a school in the suburbs. The problem was that the government schools only accept pupils from the “feeder areas” that are in closest proximity to the schools. The only option was a private school. These were expensive. And far from home.
In 2013, Bradley took on a second job as a bouncer to pay the school fees and transport. Lynette was still at home looking after her mother. But if their daughter could have a better life outside of the ganglands, then it would be worth it, they told themselves.
That same year Devon came along. It was also the year Mandela died. As far as Bradley was concerned, it was the year when South Africa’s magical rainbow stopped shining as brightly. By the following year, all that was starting to go wrong in South Africa also came knocking on his door.
Back in 2008, South Africa experienced its first power outages. Pundits warned that demand was outstripping supply and that unless new power stations were built, the country would run out of electricity. Power stations that had been built in the 1950s were also reaching the end of their lifespan. But there was no way to turn them off until new power came online. The old power stations were put on life support. They were made to work even though they often broke down. This led to power outages.
Power outages mean downtime for manufacturing. The steel plant where Bradley worked began to produce less. There were no increases that year. No 13th cheque. It broke Bradley’s heart that he couldn’t buy something nice for the kids for Christmas. School uniforms and books were more important.
In 2015, Bradley was 35 years old. Shortly after his birthday, the factory announced that they would need to lay off workers. 99 days of loadshedding8 had all but decimated the company’s earnings. They didn’t need two bookkeepers anymore. One of them had to go. Bradley got the short end of the stick.
Suddenly the family had no steady income. Lynette asked an unemployed sister to come and live with them to look after mom, so that she could seek work. It took several months to find a job as a cleaning supervisor. And Bradley found small gigs, but nothing permanent, with only the part-time bouncer job bringing in regular money.
He was gutted when they had to pull Ronese out of the private school and send her to the local one. Within a few months, he noticed a change in her behaviour. She started using bad words at home, told stories about fights on the playground, and seemed to have less interest in doing her homework.
Bradley pulled himself out of his reverie. He could hear his family stirring in the tent. Ronese emerged first. In the early morning light, she reminded him of Lynette when he had first met her. Ronese was now 16 and in Grade 10. She was struggling in school and wanted to drop out. She said it was a waste of time because after Matric, she’d never have the marks to go to varsity9 and even if she did, she knew that most of her friends’ older siblings had studied and were still sitting at home, unemployed.
“Môre, Pa,”10 Ronese mumbled.
Bradley got up and turned on the Cadac11 to warm some more water for coffee. As he turned up the flame, he looked at his daughter in the early morning light and felt sad.
He had not been able to give her any of the things he had hoped for: a good education, a life away from the violence of the Manenberg streets, stability for her future. He was now 45 and didn’t have a regular income.
He felt his jaw tense up as the now familiar anger threatened to ruin the beautiful morning. He felt helpless to change his family’s fate and his biggest fear was that, instead of the better life he had dreamed of, their lives might, in actual fact, be worse.
Without good education, an ever-dwindling economy, rampant inflation, he felt that their family was just one step away from poverty. At least they still had the house they had inherited from Lynette’s parents. But what good would that do when the kids were grown and without means to make a life for themselves.
Something had to change. And it had to be drastic. That was the reason he’d arranged to bring the family away for the weekend. They needed to talk. But first, a little fun.
Bradley stuck his head in the tent, calling Lynette and Devon. “Môre, môre,” Two sleepy faces greeted him with half-hearted mumbles. “Dit is so lekker buite vandag.”12 Both of them shooed him out grumbling that it was still too early.
But an hour later, everyone had finished the sugary porridge Bradley had prepared and they had their padkos13 ready for the 5 kilometre hike along the koppie.
(…to be continued…)
Footnotes
7. Afrikaans for “Those kids have hoodlums for parents.”
8. To deal with frequent electricity outages, the state-owned energy company Eskom implemented a timetable to stagger electricity outages throughout the day based on the availability of stored energy, which was in short supply due to breakdowns at power stations and poor management of resources.
9. University
10. Afrikaans for “Morning, Dad.”
11. Portable gas stove
12. “It’s a beautiful day outside today.”
13. Snacks
Transadaptation Volume 5 – Of Flowing Vicissitudes
January: The Night the Stars Stopped Shining – Sarah-Leah Pimentel (South Africa)
February: Three Sides to Every Story – Krisztina Janosi (Hungary)
March: Rain Trap – Adriana Uribe (Columbia)
April: Priorities – Narantsogt Baatarkhuu (Mongolia)
May: The Night in Heaven – Armine Asryan (Armenia)
June: Witches Don’t Burn – Alejandra Baccino (Uruguay)
July: At One and The End of Misery – Angelika Friedrich (America)
August: Many Happy Returns – Svetlana Molchanova (Russia)
September: To be announced
October: (To be announced) – Gennady Bondarenko (Ukraine)
November: You Are Her, Aren’t You? – Seyit Ali Dastan (Turkey)
December: To be announced
Background – Context
Transadaptation Volume 4: Material Dissent – Adulthood Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2023)
Transadaptation Volume 3: Evanescent – Young Adulthood Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2022)
Transadaptation Volume 2: Conceived – Childhood Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2021)
Transadaptation Volume 1: In the Middle – Prelude to a Contemporary Transadaptation, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2020)
Peripatetic Alterity: A Philosophical Treatise on the Spectrum of Being – Romantics and Pragmatists by Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2019)
La Syncrétion of Polarization and Extremes Transposée, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2019)
The Codex of Uncertainty Transposed, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2018)
L’anthologie of Global Instability Transpuesta, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2017)
From Wahnsinnig to the Loony Bin: German and Russian Stories Transposed to Modern-day America, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2013)
Emblems and stories on the international community
Perception by country – Transposing emblems, articles, short stories and reports from around the world
Credits
1. Top row (left to right): South Africa – The End of the World – Lina Loos (Unsplash); Mpumalanga, South Africa – The Mountains – Nadine Venter (Unsplash); Bottom row (left to right): Johannesburg, South Africa – Goodhope Supermarket – Rich T Photo (Shutterstock); Johannesburg, South Africa – Emerging – Clodagh Da Paixao (Unsplash); South Africa – Reflecting – Leo Moko (Unsplash)
Source: The Codex of Uncertainty Transposed